Feds Bust Charters for Corruption

In its recent report to congress, the U.S. Department of Education’s (DOE) Inspector General found an unprecedented number of criminal actions by high ranking charter school officials who “used their positions of trust for personal gain and cheated the students they promised to serve,” the 4LAKids Blog reported last week. According to the report, eight charter school bosses were busted for criminal activity, including several who were sentenced to prison for embezzlement.

One of the audits found that the DOE itself was asleep at the wheel in terms of monitoring charter school grants and that it lacked an effective process for ensuring that state agencies adequately oversaw their charter school subgrants. Some of the problems discovered included the use of unqualified reviewers to monitor grants, not tracking how grants were spent, and inadequate monitoring of charter school closures.

Education Dollars at Work: The DOE’s Private Arsenal

Huck/Konopacki Labor Cartoons

In the wake of the Sandy Hook massacre, there has been considerable talk about how to make our schools safer, including the NRA’s proposal to put armed guards in every school. However, this is not why the U.S. Department of Education’s (DOE) Office of Inspector General bought 27 new Remington Model 870 police 12-gauge shotguns in 2010. Nor were these weapons purchased to improve graduation rates or close the achievement gap. Rather, these guns were obtained for the benefit of DOE’s secret identity as an elite education fraud fighting unit.

According to Valerie Strauss, the guns were purchased to replace their old guns, weapons they argue are necessary for their “high-risk” crime fighting duties. Strauss’ piece in the Washington Post quoted a DOE spokesperson who said the Office of Inspector General arrests people with criminal backgrounds, including some with “histories of murder or violence toward law enforcement officers,” and has “full statutory law enforcement authority.”

The one example that Strauss gave of such an investigation was a recent search of a Stockton, California home as part of an investigation of waste and fraud involving federal education funds.

It seems to me that if being robbed and embezzled by highly armed, violent insiders is pervasive enough to warrant having its own heavily armed police force, the DOE has been wasting taxpayers’ money with NCLB, Race to the Top, and all its other expensive “reforms.” Instead, they should be implementing sting operations in every district in the country, creating departments of internal affairs, hiring undercover agents and turning teachers into Serpicos to root out all this corruption and vice, and then using the billions of dollars recovered by these operations to buy schools more books, computers, support staff, librarians, nurses, counselors and decently paid teachers.

Department of Education Mandates School Censorship

The Daily Censored reported recently that the US Department of Education has mandated school principals to censor student speech, in cafeterias, classrooms and at online sites, like Facebook. The DOE sent out “Dear Colleague” letters requiring principals to stop all physical bullying, as well as sexist, racist and bullying speech. The DOE will hold them liable for student bullying, even if it occurs off campus, and even if they were unaware that it was occurring. Principals that fail to act decisively enough will face DOE lawsuits.

Of course bullying is terrible and administrators, teachers and parents need to really pay attention and put a stop to it when they see it. The problem is that the rule is so vague that it is virtually impossible to comply with it. For example, administrators will be held liable if they “reasonably should have known” about their students’ misconduct, but failed to curb it. Yet how would they know about Facebook bullying unless they regularly scanned every one of their students’ Facebook pages, or were informed about it by students?

According to the Daily Censored, Facebook is uncritically complying with the new mandate, while the National School Board Association is opposing it. The NSBA has said that the new rule will violate the privacy and free-speech rights of students and their families and promote expensive lawsuits against districts that are already struggling financially. Indeed, the letter stated that harassment and bullying does not have to “be directed at a specific target, or involve repeated incidents [but] creates a hostile environment . . . [which can] limit a student’s ability to participate in or benefit from the services, activities, or opportunities offered by a school.” Under this definition almost any statement or act could be considered bullying if a student claims that it offended them. A t-shirt satirizing sexism could be interpreted as a provocation against boys, or Christian students talking about a church function could be seen as intimidating or alienating to non-Christian students. In fact, Christian students could argue that they were bullied by their science teacher for stating that the Earth is 4.5 billion years old, and that the Biblical date is inaccurate.

Requiring schools to monitor and police students’ private activities outside of school is oppressive and unreasonable, particularly if students are not using school email or equipment. This is the responsibility of parents and, if necessary, the police. Not only does the DOE rule impose an undue burden on schools, it lets parents off the hook. Parents want their children to be safe and treated well, but they must also step up and take responsibility by monitoring their own kids, checking in with them regularly, and being able to listen to them and support them non-judgmentally. And when their kids are doing dangerous, stupid or mean things, they must also be able to set boundaries with them.